Rome Kirby is a second-generation America’s Cup winner. His dad, Jerry Kirby, won the America’s Cup in 1992 and Rome was a rookie on board “17” for the Comeback Cup four years ago, when ORACLE TEAM USA came back from a 1-8 deficit to beat Emirates Team New Zealand 9-8.

“I remember hoisting the America’s Cup up,” Kirby says. “I walked across the stage and my whole family was in the front row. I remember holding the Cup up in front of them was a pretty special moment. We’re going to do our best to hold on to it.”

That means making use of every minute before racing starts on June 17.

ORACLE TEAM USA won the Louis Vuitton America’s Cup Qualifiers on Sunday June 4th, earning themselves a point to carry forwards into the America’s Cup Match presented by Louis Vuitton. The team hasn’t been racing since, confined to the sidelines while the Challenger Playoffs saw Emirates Team New Zealand rise to the top and beat out all other contenders to become the Challenger.

During that time, the two-time defender has been practicing, evolving its boat, testing new equipment and practicing some more.

“We’re trying to maximize our days,” sailor Matt Cassidy said. “We have a huge checklist to get through, whether it be boat-handling or speed tests and we need to get every minute out there that we can.”

A big focus has been on the pre-start playbook, where the team feels it may have an advantage over the Kiwis, and on getting more consistent in maneuvers, in an effort to be as prepared as possible when racing starts on Saturday.

“You can’t ever take your foot off the gas,” confirmed Joey Newton, a veteran member of the sailing team on his sixth America’s Cup campaign. “We will keep pushing right through to the end, because we know that’s what it takes to win.

“There’s no greater prize in yachting than the America’s Cup,” he says. “It’s a lifelong dream for every sailor on this team to win the America’s Cup. This is my sixth campaign, and it is by far the most intense. We’re not giving this up without a fight and I really like our chances.”

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“I do a lot of homework an hour before we hit the water, and then the last 35 minutes are pretty relaxed,” says Tom Slingsby, Oracle Team USA’s helmsman, tactician and sailing team manager for the 35th America’s Cup defense, about his pre-sailing routine. Slingsby describes poring over weather charts and the latest meteorological information during these homework sessions, conducted before a full-crew meeting to discuss the day’s big-picture agenda. An inner quorum consisting of skipper Jimmy Spithill, coach Philippe Presti and Slingsby then assembles. “We come up with different tactical situations that we might encounter and what we should expect,” says Slingsby. “It’s a bit of a technical playbook.”

Mental decaffeination comes next. “I don’t put on headphones or sit in a corner and mentally prepare or anything like that,” says Slingsby, who holds Australian and U.S. passports, an Olympic gold medal, an America’s Cup win and eight world-championship titles. “I like joking with friends, playing table tennis or other games, and not really thinking of the race. I try to stay as loose as possible, and as long as I’ve done my homework, I can get ready to get on the water and into that environment.”

Come dock-out time, however, the highly professional 32-year-old knows that he’s playing with sharp edges. After all, Slingsby was aboard Oracle Team USA’s 72-foot foiling catamaran on that fateful day in October 2012 when the team destroyed their first-generation boat just west of San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge while practicing for the 34th America’s Cup, and his current job involves calling the tactical shots aboard — and sometimes driving — one of the most outrageous wind-driven machines ever crafted.

Even though tagging speeds in the low-50s and experiencing frightening G-forces while match racing defines intensity, OTUSA’s skipper and afterguard rely on the team’s comprehensive playbooks, years of high-level sailing experience and — in Slingsby’s case — all senses to enable them to play grandmaster-level chess while enduring fire-hose-like saline treatments and maintaining a heart rate worthy of Tour de France contenders. Here he provides us with a look at a hypothetical race around the Bermuda racetrack from the back of USA 17.

The rules governing the new America’s Cup Class boats permit the use of a hydraulic accumulator — an America’s Cup first — that allows teams to tap stored energy, rather than requiring peak moments of grinding output. This gives Spithill and Kyle Langford, the team’s wing trimmer, ample foil- and wing-trimming muscle power, but it creates a pressure-hungry beast that’s satiated only when four out of USA 17’s six-strong crew are hammering on their grinding pedestals. This high-rpm power-endurance workout begins the moment USA 17 docks out, with Slingsby pulling ­double duty on the handles while funneling critical data to Spithill.

“I provide information to Jimmy for the start,” says Slingsby, citing ­top-level data such as burn time, distance to boundaries and distance to laylines as the most mission-critical bits of pass-through information. “That’s his area [of expertise]…. He’s going to make the judgment calls [on] how we [approach] the other boat — for example, do we back off or do we attack?”

When Spithill’s characteristically elbows-out call comes to attack, the wheel spins and the towering wingsail loads up, exposing the sailors sprinting across the nets to some of the sailing world’s highest G-forces. Spithill crosses first, letting Slingsby drive USA 17 out of the turn, and then immediately assumes the new weather helm and foil controls.

“The amount of decisions that the guys have to take … the different playbook combinations [we use], and the fact that they have to do it all at exhaustion — that’s usually when you’ll make a mistake, when you’re either stressed or at exhaustion, and that’s exactly what happens sailing these boats,” says Spithill. “It’s down to split seconds — you can’t just talk about it.”

The starting signal flips a metaphoric light switch aboard USA 17. “We roll into the next phase of the race,” says Slingsby, explaining that leader-board position often comes down to a contest of inches (or boatlengths), and that successful modern America’s Cup sailing is a matter of transitioning between two objectives. “Are you attacking or are you defending? We have a different playbook for each of those scenarios. [We’re] ­constantly going from one playbook to another.

After USA 17 clears the first turning mark and bears away toward the leeward gate, the chess game settles into a new rhythm. “I try to cut off my opponent’s opportunity to get some [separation from] us, to really restrict their maneuvers,” says Slingsby about times when USA 17 commands the lead. “If [we’re] behind, [I’m] asking, ‘Where are my ­opportunities to overtake?’”

As Slingsby computes different racecourse permutations while ­simultaneously spinning the grinding handles, Spithill and Langford focus on flight. “Once the race starts, it’s about boatspeed,” says ­Slingsby. “Making sure the boat is always going at 100 percent of its capacity. [Spithill and I] talk with [Langford] about hitting our target speeds and what we can do to go faster, and if are we in the right [sailing] mode. [Jimmy’s] job is about making sure the boat is performing up to its capacity. [I’m] picking our course.”

As USA 17 screams toward the leeward gate, Slingsby calls the favored rounding side, cycling his eyes between the water and the instruments as the boat begins the uphill leg, while maintaining a heart rate in the ballpark of 170 beats per minute. “The most important [data involves] knowing where you are on the racecourse, distance to the boundaries, and time to the boundaries so we know [when to tack] so we don’t go off the course,” says Slingsby. “I’m also looking at wind direction, and I’m ­monitoring boatspeed, true-wind angles, and making sure the boat is ­sailing to its expectations.” Blinking black boxes and data-rich screens are important, says ­Slingsby, but these pieces of information are available to all teams. “There’s a lot of intuition involved, [for example] with [a] weather pattern changing or you might know the wind is about to change.”

America’s Cup Class (ACC) boats practice racing in Bermuda

He subjects his mental playbooks to nonstop reassessment. “If I see something in the water, if I see more wind on one side or if I feel there’s going to be a wind shift, I’m going to go off the playbook.”

Complicating matters for Slingsby, of course, is his other full-time job. “The game has changed quite a bit now with the tactician being a grinder,” he says. “When I’m on the boat, I do as much as much as I can helping out the grinders without affecting my ability to make decisions tactically.” After a final tack brings USA 17 around the starboard side of the weather gate, everyone’s attention is focused on the bear-away.

“When you go into a high-speed bear-away, it’s like a slingshot,” says Slingsby. “You’re hitting 42, 43 knots on the reaching leg, and then you might get up to 46 knots, and [with] the amount of cavitation at that point — the whole boat is shaking and shuddering — for sure, you’re on edge, because if a foil breaks at that speed, it’s pretty catastrophic.”

However sketchy the situation might become, Slingsby’s job is to always think tactically, both from the playbooks and without a net — even at 45 knots. “You’re thinking a few moves ahead,” he says. “You can outrun gusts, so it’s a matter of linking it all together. Can you make a few jibes to stay in it, or link to the next [gust] and continue on? There’s a real art to it: Link a few gusts or shifts together, and you’re going to keep it going.”

Back at the leeward gate, the team hits the repeat button, rifling off another lap around the course — full-tilt boogie — keen to stay aloft on their foils and tactically engaged as they work to refine their playbooks, their individual roles and their choreography. Come the final America’s Cup Match, however, even the most off-piste maneuver should come together smoothly. “Once I decide that I need to do a jibe or maneuver, [I’m] just hitting muscle memory from then on,” says Slingsby. “Once I make the call, [I’m just executing my jobs] without even thinking about it.”

Twenty-five minutes — the projected length of a typical AC35 race — isn’t a whole lot of time by any measure. But given the realities of match racing at lightning-fast speeds around a beautiful but tricky racecourse, AC35 will require teams to compress a lot of sailing into a tiny sea bag. Feeding the always-hungry accumulator while juggling multiple memorized play and constantly re-evaluating the rapidly changing chessboard in real time requires an almost unfathomable level of concentration, precise choreography, computational horsepower and lung capacity. But come June, if all goes according to OTUSA’s master plan, this preparation — along with a massive team effort involving world-class engineers, designers, coaches, sailors, shore crew and trainers — will transform a series of these ­time-bending, 20-minute sensory overloads into another defense. That’s the plan, at least, but Slingsby knows, it’s one race at a time.

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ORACLE TEAM USA training in Bermuda for the 35th America’s Cup

The imagery is iconic: 12-Meter crews waging America’s Cup warfare on the windswept waters off of Fremantle, Western Australia, in 1987. An anxious tension hovers over the crews, crouching in their workstations, studying their sails and anticipating a command from the afterguard. A slight windshift catches the tactician’s eye, and he broadcasts a tack. Eleven bodies furiously execute the maneuver, the boat settles onto its new course, the speedometer struggles to break 8.5 knots, and the crews huddle low again.

Flash-forward 30 years, and the role of an America’s Cup crew has changed as dramatically as the boats themselves. While the transition to wingsail-powered foiling catamarans is obvious, less evident are the demands placed on the sailors by the ­hydraulic-pressure accumulators that are used to trim the daggerfoils and wing in a delicate high-speed balancing act. The 35th America’s Cup will be the first defense to use stored energy, and the hard-boiled reality is that without accumulator pressure, an AC boat can’t be controlled.

“All of the sailors are going to have to be massively physically capable,” says Giles Scott, a 2016 Olympic gold medalist and the tactician/grinder aboard Land Rover BAR. Scott describes his job as one that involves feeding critical information to skipper Ben Ainslie while spinning the handles on his shared grinding pedestal. Tacticians have always been chess masters, but now they need to think quickly while sustaining a heart rate that would challenge most elite-level athletes.

“It’s a lot more grinding ­orientated because you need the power to get the boats around the course,” says Rome Kirby with ­Oracle Team USA, about the AC35’s onboard roles. “I wouldn’t say anyone’s any smarter; it’s the Cup that’s changed.”

Rather, Kirby describes the team’s onboard responsibilities as being similar to those aboard the 72-footer USA 17 that he and his teammates raced to win AC34 on San Francisco Bay, except they now sail their 50-foot ­America’s Cup class boats with just six ­sailors instead of 11.

While Kirby explains that OTUSA worked hard to simplify its systems to cope with fewer hands, AC35 will handsomely reward teams that are nimble enough to stay on their foils through jibes and tacks.

All good sailors perform ­careful dock-out procedures, but ACC boats require far more pampering, especially as control systems are developed and refined. Given the integrated nature of the boat’s systems and electronics, OTUSA divides areas of concern (e.g., electronics, wing controls, foils) over their entire crew, with at least one sailing-team member personally responsible for ensuring that his assigned equipment and systems are properly sorted before each sailing day. The level of attention applied to maintaining and improving USA 17 borders on obsession. It’s either that or dominoes topple.

“We’re religious about checking the boat before pushing-off the dock,” said Kirby, who — along with teammate Cooper Dressler — is responsible for USA 17’s electronics and communication equipment.

“If something doesn’t work, it’s on you to raise a red flag,” says Kirby, emphasizing the responsibility that each crewmember takes in ensuring the boat is ready to fly the moment wind touches the wing.

Once sailing, maintaining accumulator pressure becomes a mission-critical task that’s tackled by four sailors. “Grinding is still a big priority,” says Kirby, explaining that aboard USA 17, the first four sailors (moving bow to stern) primarily grind. This scheme, which is employed by five of the six competing teams, frees the skipper and the wing trimmer to get the boat around the track.

ORACLE TEAM USA training in Bermuda with the new America’s Cup Class boat

Unlike a monohull, where the foredeck is the front line, no one needs to go before the forward beam. “I wouldn’t say anyone has the sketchiest job; all of us have the same [exposure],” says Kirby, who explains that everyone cycles through the boat’s business district. “I’d say the sketchiest point is crossing the boat while you’re tacking or jibing, or in the pre-start — it gets a little sketchy because of the amount of G-forces when the boat [turns] …. There’s a high potential for getting thrown off.”

To cope with these dynamic and potentially dangerous situations, each sailor must be in top form — both physically and mentally — which requires a rigorous training regime, calculated nutrition and a 24/7 commitment to the team’s goal. “I’m the fittest I’ve ever been,” says Kirby, who describes a cross-training routine that’s rich in cardiovascular work, strength training and ample sailing time. While races of yore were cerebral, marathonlike events punctuated by furious-but-short-lived moments of all-out grinding, AC35 races will be 15- to 20-minute sprints with a premium on nonstop power-endurance grinding.

The rules mandate each crew’s combined weight cannot exceed 1,157 pounds, but teams can allocate this weight among themselves. As a result, most skippers and wing trimmers have been surrendering mass to their grinders and trimmers, as evidenced by helmsmen Ben Ainslie, Jimmy ­Spithill, and Dean Barker, all of whom are noticeably leaner. The corollary, of course, is that the sailors up front have optimized their physiques. Kirby, for example, tipped the scale at 187 pounds during AC34 but has gained 13 pounds for AC35. “I struggle to keep weight on,” he confesses, even with extraordinary calorie consumption.

While Cup sailing has long been a professional sport, current editions have seen it evolve into a seven-day-a-week job. The commitment level treads heavily on personal time and family life. Moreover, while Bermuda is a postcard-perfect island nation, diversions for the ­sailors are limited.

“I love the island and the ­people, but I sometimes wish there was a little more going on than spending time on the water,” admits Kirby, who recalls catching post-sailing San Francisco Giants games during AC34. Still, he’s quick to point out that Bermuda encourages constant sailing — with the team and aboard his Moth — and facilitates a blinders-on mentality toward defending the Cup. “We’ve accepted it and buckled down,” says Kirby. “It will be well worth it to hoist the Cup over our heads in June.”

While previous Cups may have been more cerebral, AC35’s acceptance of stored energy has ushered in a new era that demands world-class sailing skills, lightning-quick decision-making, Olympic-caliber VO2 max levels, and the crew choreography to foil through any maneuver.

Here’s a breakdown of Oracle Team USA’s crew duties, from helmsman to forward grinder.

The helmsman flies the boat using her twin wheels and helm-mounted daggerfoil-control systems. He maintains dialogue as needed with the wing trimmer and the tactician to keep the boat fast and tactically engaged.

The wingsail trimmer faces forward and works closely with the helmsman to ensure optimal wing trim and ample boatspeed.

The forward-facing tactician/grinder grinds when he’s not calling tactics or feeding the helmsman with critical, need-it-now data. Additionally, he briefly steers the boat out of maneuvers while the helmsman crosses the trampolines.

The grinder faces the rudders and focuses solely on generating critical hydraulic pressure.

The second grinder aft shares a pedestal with the forward grinder and is also responsible for setting and dropping the daggerfoils and trimming the self-tacking jib.

The forward-most grinder faces astern and delivers dedicated power-endurance grinding.

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Jimmy Spithill has a cold. But the skipper perks up when the conversation turns to the endless competition at Oracle Team USA between him and design coordinator Scott Ferguson. The rivalry is cutthroat — there is no mercy; no quarter is given. And that’s just after hours. Spithill believes ­competition in just about any form brings out the best in everyone.

For the pugnacious helmsman, a good day is made up of ticking off results on the water that were discussed in theory on land. Then before he heads home, he likes to “go down to the table-tennis table, kick Scott’s ass, and take his money.” When Spithill is asked if he has more compassion for Ferguson, who is older than him and recently became a grandfather, Spithill replies: “To be honest, I feel very comfortable taking Scott’s money. More so than ever.”

As is often the case, eyewitnesses at the same event have different recollections. Ferguson says, “As far as our internal competitions, it will be hard for Jimmy to admit to losing to me at anything, even though it happens often.”

Spithill is quick to reply that Ferguson’s statement “is a lie and it’s disappointing. What’s most important is you’re only as good as your last game, and last game Scott got absolutely hosed, and he’s helping putting my kids through school.” The battles are not limited to table ­tennis. There were spirited matchups on the ­basketball court. That came to an end when two teammates who were playing with them “almost got into a fist fight.”

To keep their minds keen, there are also mental gymnastics used to hone their brainpower, such as poker games. At the last event, Spithill got the better of Ferguson and was eager to report that he made another contribution to his college fund. Bitterly, Ferguson said: “Jimmy had a good day at the table. But he’s also finished dead last. I’ve never finished dead last.”

At an impromptu boxing match between the on-the-water team and the shore crew, Ferguson jumped out of the crowd to volunteer to spar with Spithill in the ring. While there was no knockout recorded, Ferguson admitted, “Jimmy went easy on me.”

While the internal competitions between Spithill and Ferguson have included enough events to constitute a bizarre decathlon, two events are strictly off-limits. One of them is a match race in Lasers. Spithill simply refuses to go there. Ferguson has won the Laser ­Master Worlds not once, but twice. Asked for a comment, Spithill says: “That would not happen. As much as I love a challenge, I’m also not stupid.”

The other competition that is verboten is ice hockey. Ferg, who was inducted into the St. George’s School Athletic Hall of Fame for being a three-sport athlete, enjoys a spirited exchange of ideas while playing hockey, either on ice skates or in-line skates. Spithill, not so much.
There is no consensus as to who is winning the off-the-water competitions, but a correspondent noted that communication between the two is effortless.

In conversation, Ferguson and Spithill riff off each other’s ideas and complete each other’s sentences like an old married couple who are addicted to bickering and know each other’s lines by heart. This is their fourth ­America’s Cup together, dating back to the 2004 campaign with the Italians, and they have a enjoyed a productive partnership. Together they made it to the Louis Vuitton Finals in 2007 and won the last two America’s Cups. For them, the recipe for success is simple: Work together to make the boat go fast on the water, then absolutely annihilate each other on land.

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Three more days of unofficial practice racing for the 35th America’s Cup concluded on Wednesday afternoon (12 April 2017) on Bermuda’s Great Sound with the Swedish team Artemis Racing dominating proceedings, winning all nine of the races they took part in.

ORACLE TEAM USA finished second in the results table, winning five of their nine races, followed by SoftBank Team Japan who won two out of seven races they took part in, then Land Rover BAR who competed in five, winning one, and finally Groupama Team France who took part in four races without registering a victory.

Selected team quotes:

Jimmy Spithill, Skipper ORACLE TEAM USA: “It was another great race period. You can definitely see that all of the teams have improved since the last one. I think Artemis Racing came out on top and they really just made fewer mistakes than other teams. People were definitely trying a few things out on the water in terms of technique and also their general setups but it was fantastic – we got more top-end conditions in this race period.

“We’ve got a lot of work to do still. Clearly Artemis Racing are looking very strong, SoftBank Team Japan too were going really well but we learned a heap out of this as I’m sure everyone did who was out there. The French were spending more hours out there and getting sharper as well with their AC boards but overall it was a great period and we’ve got to build on this. The clock is ticking so every day counts.

“The priorities now are making sure we do a good debrief from this period, making sure we take the time to study all the racing and what we’ve learnt from it, and then we need to implement some of the development options. We need to make sure we keep developing this boat, keep making it faster, and every other team will do the same.”

Nathan Outteridge, Skipper, Artemis Racing: “We’ve had a really good race period here in Bermuda, all five teams on the island have been racing hard. We’ve had some really close battles, really close starting. Tacking duels around the course forcing umpires to make decisions, it’s everything we expect it’s going to be come May and June. It’s going to be close and we’re just working on getting better and better each day.”

Iain Percy, Team Manager, Artemis Racing: “Six weeks to go now until the beginning of the competition, and we’re now at the business end of our campaign. These race weeks continue to prove very useful. We’ve come away again with lots of lessons, lots of things we need to improve.”

Nicholas Heintz, Grinder, Groupama Team France: “In terms of physical stress, a training day on the water is much more demanding as we do three races and a lot of runs, a rhythm that we won’t be doing during the cup. The learning curve is exponential for Groupama Team France and we are learning from every session on the water.”

Adam Minoprio, Wing Trimmer, Groupama Team France: “The boat is getting more and more stable and faster on the race course. We reach 40 knots downwind and we are happy with our new foils designs. We’re still in the process of optimization in terms of control systems. Competition is very sharp indeed.”

Nathan Outteridge, Skipper, Artemis Racing: “We’ve had a really good race period here in Bermuda, all five teams on the island have been racing hard. We’ve had some really close battles, really close starting. Tacking duels around the course forcing umpires to make decisions, it’s everything we expect it’s going to be come May and June. It’s going to be close and we’re just working on getting better and better each day.”

Iain Percy, Team Manager, Artemis Racing: “Six weeks to go now until the beginning of the competition, and we’re now at the business end of our campaign. These race weeks continue to prove very useful. We’ve come away again with lots of lessons, lots of things we need to improve.”

Results of Practice Racing:

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For the latest look at the Tech that powers the America’s Cup, Oracle Team USA takes a look at the ins and outs of trimming the massive wing sail. Trimmer Kyle Langford walks us through what it’s like to control an America’s Cup catamaran.

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With the America’s Cup now being sailed above the water on foils, teams have turned to aviation experts to learn from and improve their foiling designs. Airbus worked closely with Oracle Team USA throughout the design process, taking hints from their most advanced aircraft. So, just how closely linked are flying and sailing?

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ORACLE TEAM USA skipper Jimmy Spithill has often spoken about the risks inherent in pushing the boundaries of the sport.

The team had another reminder of that on Wednesday when grinder Graeme Spence went overboard in front of the main beam, and fell in the water between the two hulls. Spence was in a vulnerable position, crossing the boat in a tack, when the boat rapidly decelerated, throwing him forward.

“Any time you see or hear someone go over the front it’s a real bad feeling,” said Spithill. “That time from when he goes over the front to when you see him pop back up on the surface and see the thumbs up, always takes too long.”

“You’re very aware of everything that’s around you – the four foils in the water with you,” Spence said. “I just sort of froze a little bit and then was quite relieved to realize I was out the back of it.”

“Every day we are constantly reminded of pushing the limits and learning from them,” Spithill concluded.

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ORACLE TEAM USA training in Bermuda for the AC45S

The four America’s Cup teams based in Bermuda will begin a “formal-informal” practice race period today, with the America’s Cup Race Management (ACRM) team on island to conduct the racing.

Iain Murray, the Regatta Director, has come out before to set up the race courses, continue to learn more about the venue and the weather, and conduct racing that gives the teams an opportunity to line up against each other.

This is the third time ACRM has conducted this type of racing in Bermuda. But with the Louis Vuitton America’s Cup Qualifiers now just over four months away, there is a renewed sense of urgency. This may be practice, but the real thing starts soon, so undertaking the discipline of a simulated race day is something the competitors are taking seriously.

“There’s a lot to it for the teams. Suddenly there is a procedure and process of immovable times that you have to meet and be prepared for,” Murray says. “That’s not usually a part of everyday life. Usually you can be a bit more flexible. But now you have to get to the race course, ready to race, by the start time.”

On the water, Murray says this is an opportunity for him and ACRM to continue the learning process.

“This is the third time we’ve done this. We’re getting a handle on the performance of these boats, the speed and angles, which helps us set up the race course,” he says.

“We’re also thinking about how we fit everyone in around the race course – the superyachts, the spectator boats, the finishing line off Cross Island, the starting box. There’s competition for real estate out there and we’re working on that.”

Chris Draper, the wing trimmer and sailing team manager for SoftBank Team Japan says these sessions are invaluable.

“It’s great because you’re on the race course area, so there’s a local knowledge build there,” he says.

“You also get to check in and see where you’re at against the other teams. These aren’t the boats we’re going to race in the America’s Cup but a lot of our thinking and strategy is all played out in these races, so it’s a good check in.

“The limitations are that you don’t necessarily have your race equipment, in terms of boards, for example, so you’ve got what you’ve got and it’s a case of just getting out there and doing your best with it. But all the teams are in that same position.”

Draper says the simulation is about more than just what happens on the water. The shore crew gets practiced in race day preparation as well.

“The more you can make a race day the same as a practice day, the better,” he says. “If we can look at exactly how long it takes us to get the boat ready, and launched and through our pre-start routine, the more we’ll be ready when the real racing starts in May.”

Only four of the six America’s Cup teams are based in Bermuda to participate in this race period. But Iain Murray says the offer to conduct racing has been made to all teams, and Groupama Team France and Emirates Team New Zealand gain as well.

“Firstly, they’ll benefit from everything we’re learning out here. That benefits all the teams,” he says. “The offer for us to go and run courses and put the discipline in to a race day is a discussion we’ve had with both the French and Kiwi teams and there is still talk about this.”

But for the next couple of weeks, the focus will be on Bermuda’s Great Sound, where the America’s Cup race course will be getting a work out from the four Bermuda based teams.

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